Intimidators: Timmy and 305

[ECG]

This topic is not so much about comparing the new coasters at Carowinds & Kings Dominion, but more for people to discuss them & give their opinions.
I'll start off with saying the Intimidator 305 certainly deserves its nickname, as I blackout or come close to blacking out pretty much every time I ride it. Aidan had only come close until the ERT last Saturday, when he blacked out for the first time. It's hard for me to imagine it was intentionally designed to have this effect on riders & I wonder how long they'll leave it like this?
Then there's the issue with neck-banging on the restraints when the train snaps through the transitions. This can be avoided by anticipating the transitions as the train enters them, but that can be difficult from anywhere other than the first car & nearly impossible at night when you can't see them coming. I do find it easier from the right seats than the left ones, but I can't explain why.
The coaster has two more shortcomings: the trims on the third hill absolutely kill what would otherwise be a nice final burst of airtime & the ride is over much too quickly.
With these four complaints, I can understand why many people prefer Intimidator at Carowinds over I305. Timmy isn't the best B&M hyper/mega coaster, but is still quite good. It does provide plenty of very nice floater airtime, but it could have used a couple of small hills to finish the ride. The helix also pales in comparison to SFOG's Goliath, Behemoth or Nitro.

 

[madhjsp]

I haven't ridden Timmy yet so I can't speak as to that one, but I mostly agree with you with regards to I305's shortcomings.

The most obvious one, which you mentioned, is the neck-chopping issue. And frankly, this one is going to be the most problematic one for the park as time goes on. As you said there are ways to prepare for the turns, and when I rode it I did that, and as such I didn't really experience any real discomfort. But my friends did mention it, and throughout the day I did overhear a couple randos around the park talk about how the ride hurts your neck. One person standing in line behind us for Volcano even went so far as to call I305 "terrible" and "a huge waste of money" just for that reason. While this opinion might be a little exaggerated, it does illustrate that this might become an ongoing issue with the GP. Unfortunately, I don't see much that can be done about it except for trimming the ride.

Then with regards to blacking/graying out on the first turn... I might disagree with you there, in that that could be the intended effect. A near-vertical 300' drop into a drawn-out 270-degree turn... what did Intamin expect would happen? Surely they understand that this would almost always result from heavy G's lasting for several seconds, as is the case here. At the same time, I'm not sure why they would do that deliberately, since I'm sure it has the potential to harm riders with certain health conditions or body proportions. I guess this is why I305 has far more health warnings on it than any other coaster I can recall riding. For instance... the voice-over in the queue says something like "if you are even unsure about whether or not you should ride, do NOT ride."

I don't think this is much of a source of complaints though, at least not yet. I personally had some graying out at the edge of my vision every time I rode, as did my friends, and we all actually kind of enjoyed it... it's just a unique sensation to say the least. On the other hand, we only rode it 4 times, so I might guess that this could cause headaches after many repeat rides. Again though, if I heard people at the park complaining about the ride, it was with regards to neck-chopping, and not with blacking out. If you read some of the youtube comments on Robb Alvey's POV (I know I know, youtube comments represent the worst of humanity... just bear with me), you see a lot of people boasting about the fact that they blacked out, or that they loved the ride because it was so intense that they blacked out. I actually agree with this sentiment, that for me at least, blacking/graying out isn't harmful and actually kind of adds something unique to the ride in terms of the thrill.

However, I can see how this and the sharp transitions have the potential to become a larger issue, and the only solution to both of those that I can imagine is to trim the first drop. This would make I305 a lot more 'rideable,' but it will also make it far less intense and exciting, at least to me. Sadly, I think this is inevitable. It will probably run all of this year without being trimmed, but I'd be surprised if they didn't do something over the next offseason.

The trim brake you mentioned does grab quite noticeably, and I wonder if they would have been better served by putting it on the downside of that hill or on the hill immediately following in order to get some strong airtime from the first one. That's not to say that it completely kills the first hill's airtime, but it does reduce it a bit.

I also have to agree that I305 is a little on the brief side. But I don't really take issue with this. What do you expect? KD obviously had to have a limited footprint so they got something with a much shorter track length than the other 2 gigas, and there are no block brakes so the thing just flies through its layout at 60+ mph for about the whole ride. That said, it does have a lot of energy when it hits the brake run and I can see how the ride could conceivably have been longer without getting boring, but again, there's not much that could have been done, since cost and space were the two overarching factors that KD had to worry about, and I'm sure this layout maximizes them.

All things considered, though, I have to say that despite these grievances, I305 is a fantastic ride. I love a ride that throws you around and makes you a little dizzy, and that's what this does. There's just nothing else I've ridden that quite matches it in terms of intensity, so as it is, it's my #1 coaster.

 

[ibreathesbs]

I honestly don't understand all the issues with I305. Neck-chopping...really? We've been getting pwned by Arrows and Vekomas for YEARS and everyone has a problem with a little neck chop here and there? (i don't experience any neck chopping because I brace myself...but meh) And people are also complaining about the G's...it's an extreme ride, it's meant to be extreme, that's what it was built for. If you can't handle it don't ride it. I just feel like enthusiasts are making huge deals out of nothing. I've heard nothing out of the GP.

 

[ECG]

I mentioned these issues because that is what I heard the "GP" discussing in the queue or say when they were departing the ride. None of this was mentioned by anyone attending Intimidation 2010. Enthusiasts love the coaster, as do I.

 

[ibreathesbs]

I mentioned these issues because that is what I heard the "GP" discussing in the queue or say when they were departing the ride. None of this was mentioned by anyone attending Intimidation 2010. Enthusiasts love the coaster, as do I.

Most GP get their opinions of a ride from what they've heard from someone else. How many of those people in line do you think have actually ridden the ride before saying something about it? We as enthusiasts (or lack there of for most people I come across) need to be a little more mindful. I run out of fingers counting how many times I've heard someone say I305 needs to be trimmed more because its dangerous...words like that can be misconstrued by the GP.

 

[Anonymous]

I haven't been on I232 at Carowinds but I've been on 4 other B&M hypers and they're pretty much all the same so I'm sure its a great ride but it's got nothin on I305. I305 is seriously the sickest coaster ever built and I still don't understand why I see so many people online complaining about it, everyone I know LOVES it.

Here are some of my thoughts on I305 (sorry if this is really long):

First let me preface this by saying I am a major enthusiast who has been on tons of coasters up and down the east coast.

I305: BEST COASTER EVER. I absolutely love it, its amazing, definitely my new #1, El Toro is now #2 in my book. I am a sucker for super forcefull G forces and ejector airtime and this thing has all that and then some! It's basically like a bigger, steel version of El Toro. It is a wild and relentless ride that never lets up, and with that EPIC first drop and 270 degree turn into the second hill, it has everything I could ever want in a coaster.

I was VERY critical of this ride when it was first announced, I just didn't think it had the proper layout a giga coaster should have. And when I found out for sure that it had the hard OTSR, I was pissed. Even after all that I still had super high expecations for this ride, but somehow in the back of my head I didn't think it would live up to them. - I was completely wrong. This monster totally surpassed all of my expectations, I feel like the happiest guy on earth knowing that this coaster is only 15-20 mins. from my apartment in Glen Allen. I am going to be there riding this thing as much as possible all summer.

I will eat my words about the restraints. Maybe its because of my height (6'1") or the fact that I have my hands up almost the entire time but the restraints dont bother me at all. On all of those sharp lateral turns that I thought would be neck choppers, I just get wicked pops of ejector air that throws my shoulders up into the restraints and my neck never once bangs anything. I guess there are just slight elevation changes along the twists and with the crazy speed that it is maneuvering them even the slightest elevation change is amplified x10. So I just getting crazy ejector air throughout the entire thing, my shoulders might get a little bruised from being thrown up into the restraints but if thats the price I gotta pay then I am all for it. My fiance who is alot shorter than me said she banged her head a couple times but she still loved it and said that it didn't take anything away from her ride experience. She was also holding on for her life the entire time and I think that makes it worse.

I know a lot of people have been blacking out/greying out on that first turn but its never happened to me, I start to get a tunnel vision with my peripherals closing in but it only lasts about 2 seconds. I still haven’t been able to ride really close to the front, all of my rides have been seat 6 and behind so maybe that has something to do with it but I’ve never experienced a complete grey out. Maybe its also cuz I’m yelling and throwing my fists in the air everytime but its never happened. My fiance said she greyed out a couple times though. Its funny cuz I've actually greyed out on backlot stunt coaster before at the top of the spiral.haha

The trim brake on the big bunny hop does slow you down but I really can’t hate on it too much, instead of just another quick pop of ejector air it really extends the floater air all the way up and over the hill, I just feel like I am floating over the whole thing every time I ride. If that trim wasn't there you would fly over that hill so fast that you wouldn’t even get a chance to really enjoy the airtime. It provided a good change of pace from the wicked sick insane ejector air the rest of the ride had prior to the trim. And then everything after that big bunny hill is still just as intense so I don't think it takes anything away from the ride at all, it just adds some variation to the airtime. It seems like the farther in the back I sit, the more airtime I get, and ride does have plenty of it, anyone who says it doesn't is lying. The extended ejector airtime on the second hill of I305 is nothing short of epic. There is also crazy air down the entire first drop, which seems almost endless. And like I said above, throughout the entire "twisty" section I get nothin but crazy pops of negative G's.

People are saying its short, 5100 feet of track is not short for a coaster. Because of the fact that it is hauling ass throughout the entire ride it seems like its over kind of quick but if it wasn't hauling ass then it wouldn't be the amazingly intense ride that it is.

People are also saying its too painful and intense to ride multiple times, I don't feel that way at all. Maybe its just me and my friends, but no one I know thinks its painful one bit. I would be super happy to ride this thing repeatedly all day long as many times as possible. All the haters are just a bunch of wimps complaining this ride is too rough. They need to grow a pair. This is how coasters SHOULD be, intense and relentless. babies. If there is a more intense coaster than I305, I would love to ride it, but until then I will stick with my original statement - I305: BEST COASTER EVER.

haaha I actually had a lot of fun writing that! :--D Some of that stuff I actually posted on KD fansite a few weeks back I just updated it a bit.

 

[Snoo]

^Now that's a review.. :lol:

Sounds pretty spot on tbh. We'll see when I got on it. Timmy, on the other hand, will be the wildcard. It could either be as good as Goliath/DBack in my eyes or complete crap like Nitro.

 

[ibreathesbs]

People are also saying its too painful and intense to ride multiple times, I don't feel that way at all. Maybe its just me and my friends, but no one I know thinks its painful one bit. I would be super happy to ride this thing repeatedly all day long as many times as possible. All the haters are just a bunch of wimps complaining this ride is too rough. They need to grow a pair. This is how coasters SHOULD be, intense and relentless. babies. If there is a more intense coaster than I305, I would love to ride it, but until then I will stick with my original statement - I305: BEST COASTER EVER.

haaha I actually had a lot of fun writing that! :--D Some of that stuff I actually posted on KD fansite a few weeks back I just updated it a bit.

The bold font...yeah that's the bees knees right there.

 

[ECG]

I still haven’t been able to ride really close to the front, all of my rides have been seat 6 and behind...

They've changed the queue now & no longer assign rows, so you'll have no problem getting the front seats. Generally there was about a 10-12 train wait for the front. The only problem with the new queue is that they've done away with the single rider line.

 

[ibreathesbs]

^ Yeah which I feel is ignorant. If you build something use it...all that empty queue is cute to look at though. Way to go KD. =|

 

[Snoo]

Single rider is a great system if done properly. No point in building something and not using it.

 

[ECG]

They could easily let people wait for the front seats & still assign everyone else to the other rows in order to take advantage of the single rider queue. Hopefully they'll get around to figuring that out, because the way it is right now is a bit of a cluster

.

 

[RCF]

^A nougaty cluster ****? Full of peanuts and ****?

 

[Anonymous]

I still haven’t been able to ride really close to the front, all of my rides have been seat 6 and behind...

They've changed the queue now & no longer assign rows, so you'll have no problem getting the front seats. Generally there was about a 10-12 train wait for the front. The only problem with the new queue is that they've done away with the single rider line.

Yeah your right I noticed this too. I actually went to the park this past saturday for a few hours but I was with two other people and unfortunately I was unable to talk either of them into waiting the extra 20 min. for the front seat. We ended up just hoping in whatever line was the shortest which was usually somewhere around the middle-back. I can't wait till I finally get a front seat ride on this damn thing though.

I really hope they get that single rider line back up for when the heavy crowds come in the summer. Ofcourse in order to do that though they would have to be assigning seats. Whichever it is they are gonna have to figure something out soon cuz it really is a cluster **** right now with the front seat line spilling out and dividing the queue and the park is only gonna get more crowded. I heard a few weeks ago when it wasn't busy they were using the single rider line as the main queue and the main queue line strictly for the front seat becuase that is the one closer to the front seat side. Something like that is not a bad idea, just to have seperate entrances for each line but they would have to rearrange the queue properly in order for it to work better when the line gets long.

I honestly doubt they'll do anything though, KD is pretty stupid about stuff like this.

 

[ECG]

I don't see them making any more changes this year tbh. They have tried four different configurations & seem to be sticking with this one for now. I think they'll change the queue in the off-season however. They'll probably have it similar to the Dommy & Volcano queues, where you form a separate line for the front seats well into the main queue, but also use the single rider queue again. They do that for Maverick at CP & it works pretty well there.

 

[madhjsp]

When I was there a week and a half ago, they were using the main queue only, and there was a separate line for the front row inside that queue that started near the station. It worked, but whoever said it was kind of a cluster **** is right. I imagine they will reconstruct the queue over the offseason but for this year, I think they'll stick with the system they're currently using.

I completely agree that I305 is awesome because it is intense. It's not painful, and it's not as if you can't ride it multiple times, but at the same time I can easily see how someone might not enjoy it. I don't think it's fair to tell them to grow up or say that they're a sissy though, just because their definition of a good coaster is different from yours.

My dad, for instance, isn't really an enthusiast but he loves roller coasters as much as I do. He loves riding them, he loves watching them soar around the track, he loves figuring out how the more technologically advanced ones work, etc. There's nothing he's afraid of and nothing he won't try... heck, he used to be a pilot so I'm sure some of these seem pretty tame. Back when I first started riding coasters, he took great pleasure in riding increasingly larger rides with me, like TTD for instance. However, now he's 57, and it's become quite obvious that he just can't physically handle some of these rides anymore. He does fine on rides like Apollo's Chariot or Millennium Force, but Alpengeist, the Incredible Hulk, Dominator and the like make him feel pretty sick. He was blown away when I showed him the POV for I305, but there's no way he could ride it without feeling the same effects, and he knows it. So when we go to KD as a family later this summer, he'll probably do one ride just to experience it, then never ride it again. That doesn't make him a sissy, it makes him smart.

I admit I probably went a little overboard with the human interest story there, but I wanted to make the point that there is a (fairly sizeable) demographic of theme park visitors out there that won't particularly enjoy this ride because of the same qualities that Joe Enthusiast value so highly. So it will draw criticism, but this won't make it unpopular. It might make some folks a little ill, but it's certainly not a debacle a la Drachen Fire, which was putting people in the hospital. I stand by my prediction that the drop will eventually be trimmed though.

Also,

Its funny cuz I've actually greyed out on backlot stunt coaster before at the top of the spiral

This happens to me almost every time, and it's so weird! There are only 3 coasters that have ever made me get grey tunnel-vision: Tennessee Tornado, I305, and.... Backlot Stunt Coaster. To be fair, though, that helix is super-tight and you hit it at the ride's top speed.

 

[Snoo]

^You kids must be weak because I feel NOTHING from Backlot.. :lol:

 

[madhjsp]

They must have the sissy version at King's Island.

See what I did there?

 

[ECG]

I've ridden each of the "Italian Job" coasters & there's no difference between them, nor do they affect me at all. The only coaster to affect me other than I305 is Goliath at SFOG. Sometimes at the bottom of the drop after the helix I gray out, but I either black out or gray out every time on I305. I guess different coasters affect each of us differently.

 

[madhjsp]

I was just joking about the BLSC/Italian Job clones... with a ride that small, I'm sure they're pretty much all identical. Not like SLCs or Batman (Batmen?), where different levels of maintenance and upkeep can have one clone giving a better ride than another.

Also, and this is just an open question for everyone, when you say that a coaster makes you black/grey out, are you saying that you completely lose your vision? For me, it's just grayness that creeps in from the edge of my vision, with I305 having the largest effect and causing me to have pretty much zero peripheral vision.